Chapter 6: Close Call
One.
Two.
Three—!
At once, all eight zombies—including Ethan—leaped towards the bloodied ravine. Falling in a straight line, they stacked one upon another.
This was Ethan’s final chance at survival. A risk he was willing to take no matter how gross it may be for his human side.
The moment he was suspended in the air, the strong pressure of gravity pulled him towards the ground. Amidst this, Ethan struggled to align himself correctly on top of the zombie.
’I almost lost my grip on him!’
It only took him a few seconds to descend.
*Plop!*
A loud, guttural sound resounded through the entire ravine, echoing.
In an instant, Ethan completely lost what little control he had over his body. His vision completely darkened.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Warning.]
[All undead under your authority have been destroyed.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[F-Rank Zombies Lost: 7]
[Updating Undead Registry...]
***
———————————————————
[#/Undead Registry/#]
———————————————————
[Current Registered Undead: 0]
[No undead are currently under your authority.]
---
’Th-This...’ he struggled to muster his thoughts, feeling as though he was being sucked into darkness.
’D-Did I... fail...?’
Ethan originally planned to sacrifice his subordinate zombies to survive the fall. To him, this was a risky choice. However, it had a higher chance of success.
However, in the urgency of the situation, he overlooked the most basic condition.
The bodies of his subordinates were mostly skeletal. Upon crashing into the corpses, their bones broke and backfired towards Ethan’s body.
On the other hand, the bones of the corpses easily passed through and pierced Ethan further.
The seven F-rank zombies died in an instant. Ethan threw himself miles closer to death.
Unbeknownst to him, his zombie body had been reduced to shreds. Bones slashed through his flesh, organs, and muscles, rendering his body completely useless.
Two sharp, lance-like bones pierced through his eyes and shattered his skull. His own bones had been crushed into fine particles, scraping his body from the inside.
’I... This is bad...’
*Ding!*
A sharp notification rang in his drowsy mind. Immediately, he felt as though an immense pressure had been lifted off his head. His mind felt clear, sound, and healthy.
---
———————————————————
[#/System Notification/#]
———————————————————
[Critical Condition Detected.]
[User vitality has fallen below the minimum survival threshold.]
[Body Integrity: 4%]
[Multiple vital organs destroyed.]
[Skeletal structure has collapsed.]
[Brain activity unstable.]
[Death Probability: 99.97%]
[...]
[Hidden emergency function has been triggered.]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Emergency Survival Protocol (EX)]
[Activation Conditions:]
└ ■ User enters an unavoidable fatal state.
└ ■ Death probability exceeds the survival threshold.
└ ■ Emergency Survival Protocol is off cooldown.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Current Cooldown Status:]
└ ■ Available
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Emergency Survival Protocol Activated.]
[The Overlord System will temporarily assume control of the user’s body.]
[Primary Objective:]
└ ■ Ensure the survival of the designated user.
[Authority Override Granted.]
[...]
[Scanning surroundings for optimal survival method...]
[...]
[Compatible Skill Found.]
└ Flesh Assimilation (SSS)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Suitable biological matter detected.]
[Quantity: Extremely High]
[Biological Quality: Acceptable]
[Estimated Assimilation Efficiency: 100%]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Optimal survival route has been calculated.]
[Executing Emergency Survival Protocol...]
---
At once, faint vibrations emerged in the calm blood lake around his body. Gradually, they became stronger, turning ripples into waves.
All of a sudden, everything stopped. The blood waves froze in mid-air.
Then, it slowly began to move backwards, funneling down towards Ethan’s shattered body.
At first, it was only blood. A moment later, the blood carried chunks of rotting flesh, as well as pieces of bones.
Converging around Ethan, it all began to dissipate into a shallow red light. Its particles flew towards him and fused with his body.
[Beginning Assimilation...]
[0.1%]
[0.4%]
[1.2%]
[...]
***
The soft light of the moon had only begun to fade when the heart of Valeria City fell restless. In the tallest tower of the city, a council of the Round Table was sitting in dead silence.
Seven of the most prominent characters of the region had gathered today to discuss matters of their own profits.
However, as soon as the organizer of this meeting—Christine Frost—handed out the recent reports.
"So the situation has gotten this bad..." an elderly voice sighed.
Since the beginning, all the participants of the meeting had been draped in long dark robes.
Their faces were completely hidden by similar white masks.
"Yes, the D-rank monster that emerged in the territorial war almost a decade ago has now started to invade many neighboring cities, including ours," Christine spoke bluntly, waving her hand as a bright hologram of a map appeared on top of the table.
On it, many deep red dots could be seen slowly moving towards a green state.
"For the past few years, we’ve tried to kill the monster many times, but in the end, all of our attempts ended in vain. Our troops could not even reach the city, let alone the monster."
For a brief moment, she fell silent, mustering her strength to continue her report.
"From the recent intel, it seems that the monster is close to breaking through the C-rank."
Several loud gasps echoed in the hall. Hearing the news, everyone was deeply shocked!
"If we let it evolve, without a doubt, the monster will start expanding its territory mindlessly." One of the younger individuals frowned.
"That is what I fear..." Christine’s brows arched inward; a mix of frustration and helplessness emerged in her eyes.
"Hold on," the elderly voice came through. "If I’m not wrong, the condition for this monster is that it needs to devour many people, right?"
Christine silently nodded in response. She, too, was curious about his thoughts.
"Then why don’t we destroy the blood lake formed near its southern borders? If we do that, we can certainly slow down its progress."
The elderly man’s voice was full of confidence. Clearly, he was confident of his suggestion. However, as he noticed the sudden change in Christine’s eyes, his will wavered.
"I thought the same... In fact, two days ago, I even sent one of my people to poison the entire blood-filled ravine." Her hands instinctively clutched her arms tightly as she spoke bitterly.
"But according to her report, the said blood-filled ravine had vanished without a single trace!"